


remember me

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: almost like praying [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternative Universe - FBI, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Amnesia, Angst, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, F/M, M/M, Parallels, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reunions, Sequel, Supernatural Elements, There is far too much recovery that has to be done first, do not expect a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-16 05:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Finn finally has Poe back, but not everything is working out as he'd hoped.(Sequel to both "he is gone (but he used to be mine)" and "ay mi familia (last night it seemed that I dreamed about you)".





	1. remember me

**Author's Note:**

> Title of fic and chapter titles are from song of the same name from "Coco (2017)".
> 
>  
> 
> Also, after the happiness of the last story, this story will most closely reflect the tone of the first story in the series. There will be Emotions involved. Hopw you all like it- enjoy reading!

At first, it doesn't seem real.

\---

Rose and Obi-Wan head to the site of the restaurant that Poe listed out in hesitant words. They're far closer than the agents still at the station, as the address is clear across the city.

They don’t speak. Rose doesn’t know Poe, but she’s seen the grief that her teammates hold over his death. She’s seen Finn’s pain over his husband’s death.

She’s never known Poe Dameron-Skywalker as anything but dead. She is understandably skeptical about him being alive.

(Things like this don’t happen in real life.)

They get out of the car and enter the building. Rose heads up to the hostess table and flashes her badge. “The Agency. SCD. We got a call from this building, from a cell phone belonging to a Harriet Brown?”

One of the waitresses nods. “Yeah, that’d be me. You here for the homeless guy?”

Before Obi-Wan can argue with her, Rose nods. “Yes, he’s a witness in a case of ours.” Or at least, he _will_ be. “Can you direct us to him?”

She shrugs and takes them past some tables and around a corner to the bar. A man is sitting at the end, clothes ratty. His head is shaved, but the most distinctive aspect of his appearance are the dozens of white scars littering his dark skin.

" _Dios_ ," Obi-Wan mutters, "He's alive."

Rose’s gaze can't tear itself away from the scars traversing Finn's husband’s skin. She can't reconcile this man- face gaunt, scars all over the place, ratty clothes, and hunched shoulders- with the dozens of happy photos of Finn and Poe.

Obi-Wan sighs. “Well, this is it.” He heads over to the bar and Rose follows. He gets to a few feet from Poe and stops. “Poe?” he asks.

Poe turns to face them and his brow furrows. "I'm sorry," Poe says, "But who are you?"

Obi-Wan blinks and realizes that the amnesia that Finn described as Poe suffering from is far deeper than Obi-Wan had optimistically believed.

"My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am a Supervisory Special Agent with the Agency-"

"The Agency?" Poe asks, and Obi-Wan notices something strange: though Poe's tone is excited, his voice is quiet, volume close to a whisper. "With Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker?"

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. "You remember Finn?" That's a positive sign.

"Just the name," Poe says, expression turning to one of shame. "I heard it during the press conference. The pretty Korean siren mentioned it.”

Rose nearly blushes, but doesn't in the end. It’s obvious that this man isn’t entirely cognizant of what he’s saying.

“Why don’t you come with us, Poe?” Obi-Wan asks. “We can take you to Finn Dameron-Skywalker.”

Poe’s posture immediately changes. He straightens up and hurries to get off the stool and follow them. “Please show me Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker,” he says.

“I’d be more than happy to,” Rose says.

\---

They bring Poe into HQ and into the briefing room, where Finn, Rey, and Leia are waiting. As they enter, Obi-Wan sees that Finn is standing facing the door with the backs of his legs braced against the table. He is trembling just the slightest bit, looking like he will fall over with the slightest touch.

( _Bee waits out in the hallway, face buried in a book as Obi-Wan escorts Finn into the room where Poe has been since this morning. He has the feeling that Bee might not be handling this as well as she’d like to pretend.)_

A smile breaks across Poe's face. "You're Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker, aren't you?"

Finn nods, unable to speak. He can only stare at his husband, take in the scars across his cheeks and bald head. It's like looking at a ghost, the barest of shadows of the Poe he once knew.

He has no idea what happened to Poe in the past five years, but it must have been close to Hell itself. Those scars, those burns, those missing memories- what could have happened to him Finn can imagine all too clearly. He has been on too many cases with victims who came out looking like Poe.

(And most of them were _dead_ by the time the team found them.)

"And you're Poe."

The man nods, and Finn realizes what's throwing him off about Poe. His mannerisms belong not to a forty nine year-old, but rather to a child. Wide eyes, response to strangers open.

It's so strange. Poe was always the alpha male, the leader, the one who knew what he was doing. Finn was always the follower, who spoke up when he had a fact, an analysis to report. He had been fine with this; he had never desired otherwise. And now...

( _He's learned, as a Professor and a Dad, how to speak his mind. Seeing Poe, though, casts him back to the years before now, when he was just a member of the team. It’s a startling difference.)_

He blinks back tears. And _now_ , Poe doesn’t even remember his own last name, much less their life together. Poe remembers nothing save Mistress, whoever she is, and the farm he worked at. (Was a _slave_ at.)

"Do you...?" Finn pauses, unable to get the words out, and swallows. He continues: "Do you know who I am?"

"Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker," Poe  says. "You have an IQ of 186, can read up to 3,000 words a minute, and have 2 PHDs. You're a member of the Agency, you are the g-dfather of Ian Laurent, you're Jewish, and you identify as asexual homoromantic-"

( _“You have a stepdaughter named Bee-")_

He cuts off, a look of confusion passing over his face. "I-" he stumbles. "I don't know how I know that."

"It seems like some of your semantic memory is intact, even if your episodic memory has been compromised," Finn says, unsure how to tell Poe what Finn considers the most important fact about himself- the only one that Poe forgot to mention. "That's a good sign."

"Really?" Poe asks, "That's good."

"Yeah," Leia says, stepping forward, but she pauses when Poe flinches back.

There’s a pause, and then, for lack of anything good from the others, Finn speaks.

"Poe," Finn says, "You're married. Do you want to meet your husband?"

(" _Do you want to meet your daughter?”)_

Poe's brow furrows, confusion plain to see. "'Husband?' I'm married to a man?"

( _“I have a daughter?”)_

The question of how far back, of how deep, Poe's amnesia runs, is brought back. Is his sexual abuse as a child still playing a part of Poe's psyche? Is this seemingly internalized homophobia due to whatever abuse he suffered during the five years he's been gone, or due to longer running problems?

"Yes," Finn says, "You've been married for seven years, three months, two weeks, and five days."

(" _You’ve had a daughter for six years, nine months, one week, and six days.”)_

Poe's face goes so pale he can almost be mistaken for Caucasian. "Seven years?" His posture slumps, and he turns to look at everyone in shock. "I've lived with Mistress for at least three." His expression turns to one of uncertainty. "At least, I think."

"Five years," Finn says. "Five years, three weeks, and six days. You've been missing since September 5th, 2014."

"Then I was married for two years before I disappeared."

"About that, yes."

Poe seems hesitant to ask, his voice quiet as he asks: "What's his name? My husband's, that is?"

A deep breath, and then: "It's me, Poe," Finn says, and almost on instinct he reaches out to his husband. Obi-Wan is shocked to notice that, for the first time, Poe doesn't flinch away from someone's touch. "Your name is Poe Dameron-Skywalker. I'm your husband."

Poe stares at Finn like a man in the desert stares at an oasis, like a captive man looks at the open sky. Obi-Wan feels like he's been yanked back seven years, all the way to the day of the Dameron-Skywalkers' wedding. The way that Poe looks to Finn for life, and the way that Finn responds, nothing but love in his gaze- it's almost like it was in a time when they were untouched by death. (But one can't ignore the way Poe resembles a skeleton, scars and burns crossing his body, muscles shrunk by starvation and fatigue, or the way that Finn looks at Poe like he's a ghost.)

"You?" Poe asks, and when he speaks Finn's name it's like a prayer. "'Finn Dameron-Skywalker?' That's who he is?"

Finn's voice is a bit strangled as he says, "Yes, that's me. Why do you say my name like that?"

Obi-Wan is kind of impressed that Finn's profiling skills are this intact after the emotional upheaval he's going through right now. The fact that he picked up on Poe's strange tone of voice is a marvel considering his emotional state.

"Your name is all I've been able to remember for, well, as long as I _can_ remember. It's all that keeps me from spiraling whenever Mistress starts a Punishment." He says it again, in that same tone of near-worship: "Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker."

They have a problem of sorts, now. It's both transference and not at the same time. Poe did transfer any good feelings he felt onto Finn's name, and therefore Finn himself now that he's met him, creating a severe power imbalance in which every good emotion or memory is credited to Finn, but on the other hand the feelings aren't entirely misplaced or even unwarranted. Finn is the person who made Poe the happiest for years before his disappearance, the person who's helped and cared for Poe the most.

"That's right," Finn says, and his carefully calm tone is close to being broken by sobs. "Finn _Dameron_ -Skywalker."

Obi-Wan hasn't heard Finn's legal last name for two ( _four)_ years. He realizes that Finn Dameron-Skywalker hasn't existed outside of Finn's mind for the past two _(four)_ years. Obi-Wan himself has thought of Finn as _Dr. Finn Skywalker_ for nigh on two and a half years, despite the ring on his finger.

_("Poe," Finn says, “There's something else you should know.”_

_The man looks at Finn immediately. “And what's that?”_

_“Our daughter is right here, in this headquarters.”_

_Poe's eyes go wide. “Bee?” He asks, and the syllables sound strange rolling off of his tongue. Poe's expression even betrays the fact that the name is unfamiliar._

_Finn nods. “Bee, who cares about you, and misses you, and wants to see you.”_

_Poe swallows. “If she wants to see me, then let her.”)_

Finn takes Poe’s hand in his. His hand is nothing like Finn remembers. The callouses are more widely spread, curving around his palm and fingers. His veins are more pronounced, dirt engrained under his fingernails and into the creases of his skin. His skin looks like it has been permanently stained by hard labor.

“I’m your husband,” Finn repeats. “And I want-” His voice nearly breaks, but he won’t let himself splinter again. He won’t allow himself to crash, to burn out over old grief. “I want to get to know you, Poe.”

Poe's face when he looks at Finn is heartbreaking. He won't meet Finn's gaze, the emptiness in his expression naked to see.

“Okay, sir.”

_(Rey opens the door and Bee enters, arms clutched around her book._

_Her eyes go wide when she takes in Poe's appearance. Her hand twitches, as if to fly to her mouth in surprise, but instead she crosses her arms across her chest in a defensive position. Finn takes in the inane, small details: she's wearing her favorite orange jacket (_ Poe's _jacket), her hair is up, braids pulled into a bun, and her arms tremble. It hurts to see his daughter so scared, so anxious._

_She swallows. “Pa?” she asks, voice quiet and shaking._

_Poe's brow creases as he studies her face. Finn actually holds his breath as he waits for some kind of reaction. He knows that there isn't a strong likelihood- Poe didn't recognize_ him _, just his name- but he hopes with everything he has that his daughter doesn't get her heart shattered like he has._

_Poe looks, and looks, and- “You are Bee, then?”_

_Finn tries not cry, though accomplishing such a feat is a near thing._

_She nods, and her face would betray nothing to anyone who hasn't lived with her for the past five years. To Finn, though, he sees the way her fingers twitch, the way her left forearm shakes just slightly. He sees how much she feels._

_“I’m your daughter,” she says. “I’m your and Dad’s daughter.”_

_“Dad?” Poe says, and it's taking a moment for the term to process._

_Bee nods. “Finn legally adopted me a couple of years ago.”_

_Poe glances at Finn. His voice, when he speaks, is incredibly fragile. “Really?”_

_Finn nods. “Really.”)_


	2. if you close your eyes

"It's time for bed," Finn says once they get in their hotel room, and Poe nods. Finn sits down and starts to pull off his shoes and jacket. Poe, on the other hand, strips off his shirt, kneels down on the floor, posture ramrod straight, and bows his head.

Finn's brow furrows as he finishes pulling off his second shoe. "Poe," he says quietly, "What're you doing?"

"I'm ready for sleep," Poe says. "You have me however you like me, and then you fall asleep. I'm not to fall asleep until after you do."

Bile rises in Finn's throat. He slides down onto the floor next to Poe, who lets out a small sound of surprise when Finn gently places a hand on Poe's knee. "Why...why do you think you have to do that?"

"It's what Mistress wanted." Poe says, in that still small voice. "I expected you'd want it too, as you're my husband." His voice trembles on that final word. "You'll want intimacy.”

Finn's heart breaks as he processes what's happening. Poe thinks that in order to please someone, he must submit to their abuse. He thinks that Finn will abuse him, and in his broken state of mind he thinks it's  _ okay _ for Finn to do such a thing.

Does Poe even- "Poe," Finn asks, "What does it mean to you that I'm your husband?"

Confusion creases Poe's forehead, and his knee starts to shudder just slightly under Finn's hand. "You're my master," he says quietly, and every inch of Finn's body is flooded with complete and utter horror. "I belong on the ground and under you.”

Finn makes a quick decision. He reaches up and pulls down a couple of pillows from the bed, as well as a blanket and the top sheet. "Here," he says, and he can't be sure if this is the right response but it's a hell of a lot better than letting Poe suffer alone. He hands a confused Poe a pillow. "If you belong on the ground, then so do I." Poe doesn't look at him, and Finn says: "Poe, please look at me."

Poe glances up, and Finn continues to speak calmly. “This relationship was formed on friendship. We always respected each other as equals, respected each others’ desires. I will  _ never  _ ask you to do anything you aren’t 100% comfortable with, okay?”

Poe nods, shock plain in his face. Yet again that unfamiliar anger rises in Finn’s chest. If he could get Shilda McDouglas’ neck in his arms, he’d gladly wring it.

( _ Finn swallows. “We have a daughter in the next room over, waiting for the sign that it's okay to speak to you.” _

_ “She wants to see me?” Poe asks, and Finn hates the fact that it's been so long that he can't properly read his husband. He can't tell if Poe is uncertain, fearful, anxious, or excited by the prospect of Bee. _

_ Finn nods. “Of course she does.”) _

“So, Poe,” Finn says, “Would you like to sleep in the bed, or on the floor?”

Poe glances between the bed and the floor. Finn will probably be more comfortable on the bed, and if Finn can withstand Poe’s unworthy presence, then that will be the better option. “The bed.”

Finn smiles and picks up a pillow from the floor. “Good choice, Poe.”

_ (“I think this bed will fit the three of us,” Bee says. “It  _ is  _ a Queen.” She looks at Poe. “Do you want to sleep in the middle or on the side?” She raises a hand slightly to point at the floor. “Or do you want a slumber party on the floor, as I see you guys have already started working on?” _

_ Poe glances between Finn and Bee, his husband and his daughter. A memory surfaces, of a dinner long ago. A little girl, not even at puberty yet, wearing a leather jacket, her hair in two braids, and a smile. _

_ This girl- his daughter- grew so much since then. She's matured from a girl to a woman, and he saw none of it. He barely remembers what happened in the Before. _

_ Finn grew too, though it's not as dramatic. Poe remembers, just barely, a fresh-faced thirty-four-year-old who wore contacts and spoke softly even when he knew the correct answer. Now he sees a thirty-nine-year-old, glasses perched on his nose, who has wrinkles around his eyes and is starting to go gray who speaks confidently without checking to see if anyone is judging him. _

_ Poe looks away from them and to the bed. He swallows. “On the floor,” he says. “Beside the bed.” He'll take up less space that way. _

_ Finn smiles. “Sounds great to me. Bee?” _

_ Bee nods.) _


	3. ever if I'm far away

Poe wakes up next to his husband _(and his daughter_ ), and he stares at them for a few moments, absolutely silent. He ( _t_ _hey both_ ) looks so peaceful, so kind.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing here. He doesn’t belong here, with these beautiful, wonderful people. They are _good,_  and he knows that he is not.

What is Poe supposed to say to him ( _them_ ), to these people who have done nothing but try and help him? To the man who told him that he just wanted to be friends? ( _To the daughter that just wanted him to be comfortable?)_

He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve their love, their trust. He _(they)_  don’t know him, don’t know what he’s done. He _(they)_  don’t know what he’s become. They know Poe Dameron-Skywalker, not the man.

He looks down at his husband ( _his family)_  and he doesn’t want to ruin this with what he has become. He is nothing like all of the people who have rescued him, nothing like these good people whose lives are dedicated to helping save others. He did nothing to help with what was happening in the basement, never made any attempt to save himself from what was happening. He let Mistress do whatever she wanted to him.

Poe slips out of bed, years of ingrained instincts letting him move as silently as possible. Finn ( _and Bee_ ) barely stir. Poe pads across the floor and toward the window, shedding any all oppressive layers as he does. Soon he is just standing in his boxers and he feels much better.

He looks out the window. Across the road from the hotel is another building, the red bricks covered in graffiti around the sides. Someone’s tag is in the very middle, the yellow letters HERETO surrounded by a wide expanse of naked brick.

He starts to feel warm and he looks up. The sky is mostly blue, with a few clouds here and there. The sun is prominent in the sky above this city, but this- _this_ is okay.

As strange as nearly everything else is- a bed, people who seem to care about him, clothing- the sunlight is fine. It is normal. It is what beat down against his back for so long. In a way, it is almost like a friend (another concept he only vaguely remembers, but that Finn reminded him of last night).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the short chapter, but the new one's pretty long, so just hold on!


	4. don't let it make you cry

“Do you mind telling me what happened to you?” Leia asks gently. Finn recognizes what she is doing- treating Poe like a victim (which is what he is).

Poe glances at the one-way mirror. Finn knows that Poe can’t see him and Em, but he can’t help but think that Poe is seeking reassurance. “I don’t mind,” Poe says quietly.

“Good,” Leia says, in that same careful, even voice. Finn realizes that it’s a _very_ good thing that she’s the one doing the interviews, and not one of Poe’s other friends or teammates. Leia has centuries of experience. Though she does care about every friend, of course, five years of grief will not have as much of a psychological impact on her life as it does on any of the other usual interrogators- Finn, Em, or Piero. She places a tape recorder on the table and presses the _ON_ switch. “Start with whatever makes you most comfortable.”

Poe swallows. “Dreaming made me happy,” he starts, and what follows Finn can hardly bear.

...

“I don’t remember anything of the Before. Perhaps if I did...well, I don’t, so it doesn’t make much of a difference, does it?”

Finn isn’t crying now. He thinks it might be shock, might be anger. Maybe he cried too much when Poe was gone. Maybe he’s so used to witness statements, to descriptions of such violence, that he’s not responding as a normal person would.

He doesn’t know, but to be honest, he doesn’t think it would matter.

...

"After I left the basement, I wasn't allowed back. I was forbidden from even touching the doorknob- she burned my hands with cigarettes the first few times touched it and I learned not to afterward."

Finn's hands clench into fists at his side. The shock is finally starting to leave, and what is left behind is a pit of slowly burning anger. He's trained to remain calm in situations such as this, to compartmentalize in order to keep from feeling, but he can't do that as well now. This is Poe who's speaking now, the husband that Finn thought was dead and who he's now learning was going through absolute hell. Finn can still barely believe that this is Poe, that this is the man he spent five years grieving.

( _Finn has always been a passive man, finding it hard to get angry at much. His daughter, over the past five years, has taught him how to get frustrated. She has taught him how to be angry, how to feel hate boil through your veins. She’s taught him how to do things other than cry when confronted with tragedy.)_

...

“Most of the time I was the man, but sometimes, when she would whip me, I would get...um...frustrated, and I remembered Poe. I remembered the name Finn Dameron-Skywalker.”

( _“I remembered having a daughter.”)_

“I remembered being a human being.”

The confessional ends, and Leia only has one last question.

“Do you think you can identify the house that you were held in?” Leia’s voice is shifting just slightly into anger- not enough that Poe, separated from them for five years, should notice- but enough for Finn to recognize.

“Yes,” Poe says.

“Thank you,” Leia says, “We want to get Mistress put away as much as you do.”

\---

( _Bee doesn't have previous experience with this sort of thing. Her Dad's been out of the business for a few years, but he worked cases for eleven years. She, on the other hand, just has_ Law  & Order _and_ Deadly Women _marathons to prepare her for the horror of her father's story._

 _They did nothing to brace her for_ this _.)_

\---

They arrive at the farm house that Poe pointed out. From the outside, it doesn’t seem like anything strange. Just your normal ranch house, a few bedrooms, fields and a barn off to the right.

"I don't think you should go down there, Finn," Leia says, and Finn shakes his head.

"I have to see this," he says, "I have to know what Poe went through. I have to be able to understand."

( _He swallows. “I need to see it, for both me and Bee. She has to understand, if not in the most explicit terms.”)_

Leia nods. "Okay."

\---

At first, Finn can’t believe what he’s seeing in this basement. Seven corpses, lying side by side. All Latino men, the barest hints of supernatural origin on all of them. Pointed ears on one, fangs poking over the lips of another. They all bear signs of unbelievable violence. The bodies are emaciated, covered in bruises, burns, and scars. Their bodies have been abused, been tortured in seemingly every way he can think of.

"Holy fuck," Finn mutters, tears springing to his eyes. "Poe had to go through..." The words dry up in his mouth, and he has to turn away from the bodies and face Em. She pulls him into a hug.

_(It's been too long since his last case. What, four years, three months, and seven days, since he last touched evidence, right?_

_He swallows. “How am I going to tell Bee?”_

_Rey places a hand on his shoulder. A mother herself, she probably can imagine the horrors he’s feeling right now._

\---

It’s like approaching a car wreck as you’re stuck in traffic, getting slowly and slowly closer to the wreckage. You can’t help but stare, not matter how much you may want to look away. You can’t help but keep going, no matter how much you may want to stop.

In the kitchen, they find a dish of food on the ground. In the study, they find yards of unused rope. In the bedroom, they find a bunch of crumpled up, clearly slept in pile of blankets on floor near bed.

And the _smell-_ oh g-d, that’s what Poe smells like. Not back five years ago, but just now, in police HQ. Musty and a bit moldy and almost...grimy, if there’s a scent that could be defined as such.

(All together something that come out of a POW camp in a third world country, not a farmhouse outside of Kansas City.)

\---

Leia calls Yaz. “I need the name for the property at 1230 Eisenhower Drive,” she orders, sticking the tech analyst on speakerphone.

The sound of typing echoes for a few moments before Yaz says, “Shilda McDouglas, siren and widow three times over. She should be returning from vacation sometime this afternoon. I’m sending her photo to you all for ID purposes.”

The woman that shows up in Finn’s messages is striking, with incredibly pale, flawless skin, unusually light colored eyes, dark ribbon-straight hair, and a crimson lips. Dressed in a flowy white shirt, the photo appears to be taken from a… “Dating website?”

“She has an account on five major dating websites,” Yaz says. “And a steady stream of willing dates.”

He has a name now, a face and a name to put to every horrible story that Poe just told, inside of the interview room.

(And he _hates_ her.)

\---

The waiting is the worst. Every cloying thought, every bit of anger that slowly builds up in his stomach...he can barely stand it.

(The only thought that keeps him patient, keeps him from going insane as he waits for the woman who kept his husband captive for years, is that he will be putting away a monster.)

\---

Finn has never felt such satisfaction- and such grief- when capturing a criminal.

_(It has been five years, but he remembers every arrest in vivid detail. An eidetic memory leaves no detail untouched, no horrible memory uncovered. As he watches this monster- for she is no woman, but a demon, a monster- get arrested, he remembers how it felt to arrest monsters before her._

_He cannot describe how cathartic_ this _anger is compared to that.)_

"Shilda McDouglas, you are under arrest for the kidnapping, torture, enslavement, and rape of Poe Dameron-Skywalker, as well as the murder of seven other men."

She smirks as they handcuff her. "So you finally found out, did you?" She laughs. "He was my toy. My bitch. My _slave_. He lasted so much longer than any of the others.”

Finn is about ready to launch himself at her, normally calm nature be damned, when he feels Rey's hand on his back.

“Finn,” she says, “Just hang back. She’s not worth your fury.”

The woman freezes. "Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker?" She growls, and attempts to lunge at him, ignoring the handcuffs on her wrists or the fact that Obi-Wan and Rose are yanking her back. "You fucking pig!" She spits. "You nearly ruined my perfect boy!"

"Your boy?" Finn seethes, "He's not your 'boy!' He's a man, a husband, ( _a_ _father_ )! He’s not your _toy_!”

\---

_(Bee and Poe spend the day in the hotel room. It’s quiet, as they don’t know how to move around each other._

_Poe doesn’t know how to interact with, well, anyone save Mistress. He knows so little about this girl, about how he, as a father, interacted with his daughter. And even if he did... it’s been five years since he knew her last. She went from a thirteen-year-old to an eighteen-year-old. She’s matured so much since he last knew her, and all without him witnessing it._

_Bee doesn’t know how to interact with a father so divorced from reality. He doesn’t remember her, or Dad, or even the outside world itself. She doesn’t know what he remembers, what managed to escape the block that’s been put on his mind. Talking to him would open up too many wounds, rip open too many scars long healed over._

_(What she realizes is really depressing- that she’s now in the same situation with her father that she was in with her stepfather five years ago. She wants the father she knows better to brace her for talking to the father she doesn’t know that well.)_

_What ends up happening is quiet, and nothing too remarkable. Bee digs out her book from the backpack she’d flung together before leaving Richmond and spends most of the day reading. In one of the few actual conversations she has with Poe, she gives him a book that she thinks won’t be too dark. A guilty pleasure novel that’s kind of based off of the Bachelorette (but gay, royal, and taking place in a fantasy universe), it shouldn’t trigger too much for her father._

_Poe doesn’t remember how to laugh. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to soon. After all, just yesterday he figured out how to smile._

_But reading this book and watching Bee, seeing her smile at whatever book she’s reading, he knows he wants to.)_

\---

For years, Finn has suffered with the pain of Poe’s death- disappearance- _agony_ \- on his heart. This woman- this monstrous creature- is what caused that.

(Finn has always been a forgiving man, but _this_ , this horror- he does not have to forgive this. He will _never_ forgive this. This woman has broken everything- everyone- he loves.)

“You will have to live with yourself every day that you sit in that prison cell, rotting away, knowing that he is safe, and he recovering, and you can _not_ do anything to harm him anymore,” Finn seethes.

Shilda’s face goes red, and if he was close enough he thinks she might spit at him. He takes a vicious pleasure in her reaction.

“I hope you _rot,_ ” he spits as Leia leads her to the police car.

Rey takes his hand in hers. “Squeeze if you need,” she mutters, and he nods his head in gratitude.

He stares at Shilda McDouglas, at the car taking her away, and the anger begins to seep away. In its absence he feels nothing but a numb stupor. This doesn’t feel like justice. This doesn’t take away the hurt that Poe has suffered for years. This doesn’t take away the seven dead bodies waiting to be identified in the basement.

Shilda McDouglas’ arrest, though temporarily satisfying, fixes _nothing._


	5. hold you in my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.

There is very little to persuade Poe that this world is real. He has no memory, no connection to the dragon woman and the vampire and the man who stands and smiles at him, eyes bright.

For all he knows, this could all just be the product of a broken imagination, a traumatized mind. What is reality? What is a nightmare?

\---

Finn sometimes catches himself looking at Poe, and staring, and thinking, _this was never supposed to happen._

Nothing seems to be any help. Nothing jogs Poe’s memory- small tidbits seem to escape sometimes, blurted between uncertain lips, but for the most part, nothing seems to help.

\---

Every night Poe expects to find himself back in Mistress’ room, and he’s not sure whether that would be a bad thing.

It had been so simple, so easy back then, in the basement, in the fields, in Mistress’ room. All he’d had to do was what she wanted. All he had to do was forget himself.

Now that he’s here, he has to fight. He has to struggle, and remember, and be someone he hasn’t been in five years. He has to try and be someone- some _thing_ \- that he can’t remember ever being. He has to be demigod, ex-Agent, husband, ( _father_ )- everything he, as he knows himself, has never been. He has to be something old, something new, something he isn’t. He has to be strong, has to make choices.

All he wants to do is crawl into a dark corner and shut out everything. He doesn’t want to face his hero- Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker- as a failure, as everything Finn doesn’t know, doesn’t want. He’s not the man that Finn knew. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be.

(Poe doesn’t remember what it’s like to be alive.)

\---

Poe flinches away when women try to touch him. When Rey touches him during dinner a few nights after they’ve gotten back to Richmond, he nearly flips the chair backward, so violent is his response. He sits there, trembling, as the conversation halts.

Finn sits next to him, and he has no idea what to do. Does he place on Poe’s shoulder in an attempt at comforting him? Does he let Poe ride it out on his own?

In the end (to his shame) he does nothing.

( _Bee, sitting on the other side of Poe, does something. She reaches out tentatively, as if reaching for Myrtle, her AP Bio teacher’s corn snake, and takes Poe’s right hand in both of hers. She gently runs her thumbs along his knuckles, sitting there silently until Poe stops shaking. Finn recognizes the movement as one she would sometimes use for him when he was having an anxiety attack._

_Everyone at the table- Finn, Em, Yaz, Will, and Ian, precocious thirteen-year-old that he is, goes back to talking. Rey stays at least five feet away from Poe at all times, and the casual conversation nearly covers up Poe’s comment to Bee._

_“Thank you,” he says, and she nods._

_“No problem,” she says, and leaves her left hand in his while slipping her right hand away to eat. Finn feels a rush of gratitude that she thought of what to do so quickly.)_

\---

Poe has seen the photos lining this apartment, the ones in which he and Finn kiss each other, hold hands, smile at each other like there’s nothing else in the whole world. He knows that he must have been passionately, head-over-heels in love with Finn.

He knows, objectively, that he used to love this man. He was in a relationship with Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker for eleven years. He _married_ the man, for G-d’s sake. He- at least judging by the scantest of memories, photos, and the bracelet around Finn’s wrist- shared some kind of religious connection. Something to do with Möbius strips, or something like _mizpah._

He doesn’t love him now.

When Poe looks at Finn, he thinks that he looks nice. He thinks that Finn is someone who would make a good friend, who he would enjoy spending time with.

He doesn’t think of kissing Finn. Most times, he doesn’t even think of holding Finn’s hand. He thinks of sitting with Finn and talking to him, listening to Finn’s soft voice as he explains something. He thinks of something he never has- friendship- of comfortable shoulder touches and conversation and no more.

He thinks of Finn, the doctor. The expert. The friend. Not the lover. Definitely not the husband.

He feels a sense of comfort, of ease, of admiration, but not passion. Not desire. Not love.

He doesn’t know what to do with this.

\---

Finn comes home from work that day to find Poe sitting on the couch, arms wrapped tight around a pillow.

( _Bee is sitting on the other side of Poe, hand resting on his elbow as she tries to read_ Carry On, _an old favorite, for the nth time. When Finn enters, she gives him a desparate look._

_Finn’s heart sinks as an old memory of her at thirteen-years-old, comforting him after an anxiety attack._

_As he sits down, she stands up. “I’ll go, then,” she says, and before Finn can react she’s up the stairs. He doesn’t protest- Bee’s had to go through so much over the past few days that she shouldn’t have had to.)_

Finn sits down next to Poe. “Poe, you okay?” he asks, careful to keep his voice gentle. He is _always_ careful to keep his voice gentle, and it’s something Poe is grateful for. He can’t imagine how hard it must be for Finn to constantly keep calm, especially after everything that has happened.

Poe doesn’t know how to put his feelings into words, describe this awful guilt he carries with him. He has to tell Finn, has to impart this horrible truth into this man who cares so much about him.

The taste of sour in his mouth just grows.

( _Bee had to sit by Poe, try to comfort him. A child, almost, trying to help him. He feels almost worse about that than what he is doing to Finn. From the photos in the hallway- including one in a hospital, with Finn leaning against Poe, thumbs thrown up, a hospital gown around his torso and a bandage around his arm- it seems like Finn has gone through worse in the past._

_What Poe has to tell Finn should cut, but hopefully not too deep. It can't be worse than having to grieve his husband for five years._

_Learning your husband doesn't love you has to be better than learning he's dead, right?)_

“I don’t think I love you, Finn,” Poe blurts, and isn’t that the awful truth. Finn’s expression, for just a moment, looks like he’s been punched, but he thankfully recovers within a few moments. Not having to stare at Finn’s heartbroken face manages to keep Poe’s tattered sanity at least slightly intact.

Finn swallows. “There’s nothing wrong with not loving me,” he says. “You don’t remember me. I wouldn't expect you to love me.”

Poe’s voice is quiet when he says, “Even if I get my memories back, I may not love you. I’m a different person than I once was. The time I was on the farm changed me from that-” and he gestures to the photos on the mantle, photos in which an unscarred version of him grins, unmarred by Mistress- “to this.” He points to himself. “Whatever he- that Poe- was ended up warped by the farm. So, even with my memories back, I want to love you, but...I might not.”

Poe knows that this is a lot- maybe too much- to ask the man who's spent the last five years grieving him. He feels really bad about this, but he _needs_ to know.

“Please tell me that will be okay.”

Finn doesn't respond for a few moments, and when Poe glances up he sees Finn's hands white-knuckled from how hard he's clenching at his slacks. His expression is drawn, his narrow features made thinner by this stress.

“I-" Finn starts to say, but then swallows. A few more tense moments pass before he tries again. “I guess I-I can.” It sounds like Poe is dragging a murder confession out of an innocent man. “As long as you’re happy.”

(Happy? _Happy?_ Poe hasn't been happy in, well, as long as he can remember.

He hasn't been much of anything, truly.)

“I _do_ want to be your friend, though,” Poe says, “If that’s okay with you.”

It’s obvious Finn’s heart is breaking as he nods. Poe doesn’t know what to do. He wants to comfort Finn, but he doesn't know how. Should he hold Finn’s hand? Should he try a hug? What do you say after telling your husband that you may never love him again?

“Of course,” Finn says, and his voice is choked up in the way Poe’s was when he cried himself to sleep after one of Mistress’s beatings.

They sit like that, in awkward silence, for a few moments before Poe catches himself yawning and Finn immediately springs to his side. “You should go get some sleep.”

Poe frowns. “Are you tired?”

Finn shakes his head and tries to give Poe a reassuring smile. His smile, though, is pinched. “I have some stuff to do. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Finn,” Poe says, standing.

“Good night, Poe,” Finn says, automatically following with, “I lo-” He stops.

The world feels fragile. “You don’t have to stop saying that. You feel the way you do, Finn, and I don’t want to make you feel like you can’t be that way.”

Finn nods. “As long as you’re comfortable with it.”

“I am.” And that’s the truth- though he himself doesn’t feel the same way that Finn does, not once has he felt pressured like Finn is pressuring him into loving him back.

Finn takes a deep breath. “Then good night, Poe. I love you.”

“Good night, Finn.” Then he heads upstairs.

\---

Finn stays in the living room for a long while after Poe disappears.


	6. know that I'm with you

_ (Bee appears at the base of the stairs, arms wrapped around her chest. _

_ Finn looks as she stands there, in flannel pants, a tank top, and that old robe of Poe’s. They have had five years alone together, just the two of them as their tiny little family. Five years of grief, and healing, and eventual growth. The two of them against the world. _

_ “Dad,” she says, “You okay?” _

_ Not for the first time, Finn thinks about the fact that she’s a child having to comfort an adult. _

_ “Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, even though he’s quite obviously  _ not fine.  _ How could he be fine when his husband just told him that he doesn't love him? _

_ “No, you’re not,” Bee says, “That’s perfectly clear.” _

_ “You don’t have to worry about me,” Finn says. _

_ “I’m not just a kid anymore,” she says, “You shouldn’t have to worry about me dealing with things that are “too mature” for me.” Before he can decide whether to argue or agree, she sighs and purses her lips. “But...I am your daughter. And I’m glad that you’re worried, ‘cause it reminds me that although my Pa may not remember me, my Dad does. And that reminds me that I’m loved.” _

_ She sits down, back against the armrest, and tucks her bare feet under his thigh. He barely flinches as her freezing cold toes press against his leg. _

_ “But what I came down to say is that Maria called,” she says, and her voice is hollow. “Her, Frankie, and Ralph were worried about me. I haven’t texted them in two and a half days. I don’t know what to tell them. Frankie and Ralph have never known Poe as anything but dead. Maria didn’t know him for too long either. They know you, and me, but not Pa.” _

_ Her bottom lip trembles. “I have no idea what to tell them.” _

_ “Well, you  _ are _ going off to college next September,” Finn says, and he laughs wetly. “You can tell them that you’ll definitely have something to write your essay about.” _

_ Bee’s jaw levers open and closed. She doesn’t seem able to summon a response. Finn instantly feels bad about the joke. It was tasteless, but he’s reaching. He has five years between him and Poe’s disappearance, five years between the beginning of their awkward, two-person family and now. Somehow, though, it feels like they’re back at that beginning place, when Finn was reaching for whatever could soothe the situation. _

_ “I’m sorry-” he starts, but she cuts him off with a sigh.  _

_ “Everything, every plan and goal, has been completely thrown off track. I mean, a couple of days ago my biggest worry was college applications coming up. And now...well, now…” She swallows. “We were supposed to go to college next year, me and Maria and Frankie and Ralph. Probably not the same college, but we were planning to keep in touch.” _

_ “We’re gonna have a long conversation with them, I promise,” Finn says. _

_ She sighs. “That’s not gonna be enough. I mean, I’m gonna have another  _ father  _ suddenly showing up. One conversation isn’t gonna cut it.” _

_ He nods. “I know. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”  _

_ She shifts so that she’s laying next to him. They don’t fit as comfortably as they used to- though Bee’s short, she’s still grown plenty over the years- but they manage to get into a semi-comfortable cuddling position. _

_ Finn holds his daughter close. They went through a year of hell after Poe first disappeared, and then carefully pieced themselves back together after that. They made their own lives, their own family out of what was left behind. The two of them, as different and awkward as they were to begin with, made a world together. _

_ They’d finally been happy, and Poe hadn’t, and Finn feels so guilty for thinking it but- Bee already lost her mother. She lost her father, and then had to build a life without him. She’d done it, been so strong. What has happened over the past couple of days- Finn knows it’ll be hard to get past. Five years of healing, of growth, is broken. _

_ (It’s not right to feel resentful of Poe, of the situation, of everything that’s happened. Poe is  _ alive.  _ That’s what Finn should focus on. Not the cons, but the pros.) _

_ (He tries not to focus on his own guilt. How strong could their  _ mizpah  _ possibly have been if Finn had so easily given his husband up for dead?) _

_ (His husband is  _ alive. _ ) _

_ “Dad,” she says into his collarbone, “What’s gonna happen next?” _

_ “I don’t know, biscuit,” he says truthfully. “But whatever it is, we’re gonna make it through, I  _ promise. _ ” _

_ And that has to be enough. It just  _ has  _ to. _

_ (Because Finn thinks that he just might break otherwise.)) _


	7. the only way that I can be

“Rey,” he says into the phone a few minutes after Poe’s headed upstairs, “I don’t know what to do.”

“He doesn’t love me. Maybe he never will. And I understand, I do, but...Rey, my heart is breaking. I don’t know what to do. I thought I was done with this, that I’d grieved enough, that since I have Poe back it’d be different. I thought everything would go back to how it used to be, that the nightmare would finally be  _ over _ . But now it may never go back to normal.”

The tears are hot and sticky, turning his face into a mass of slime, but he doesn’t care. He can’t bring himself to care, when everything feels like it is shattering. “I care about him, and I love him, and I can’t stop myself from feeling like I do. But if he doesn’t love me back, if eleven years of loving and five years of praying do nothing, then what do I have? What does our relationship mean if he doesn’t love me anymore? I know I told him that I was fine with just being friends, but I thought that would be temporary.” He swallows and repeats: “I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know, either,” Rey says, and she sounds like the kind of hopeless that he’s feeling. “I've never gone through what you're going through.”

Resentment rises in Finn's chest for a moment because yeah, Rey has never had to deal with her husband dying and returning alive but scarred, never had to weather her husband's disappearance for five years alone, ( _ never had to hold her child’s hand at her husband's funeral and hold them as they sobbed through nightmares of the same thing happening to her) _ , but then- then it deflates. He doesn't want to resent his best friend because her life isn't a tragedy. He doesn’t want to be jealous of her because she’s happy.

(But he is. G-ddamnit, he  _ is  _ jealous. He  _ does  _ resent her, if just a little bit. She has what he always wanted- a happy family, living (loving) husband, a life without death touching her personally.)

He sighs. “Thank you for trying, though.”

The cheer in her voice is forced. “Anything for you, Jon.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says. His free hand clenches around the fabric of the sofa armchair.

“Talk to you tomorrow,” she says, and then, breaking his heart: “Love you, Jon.”

He can barely choke out his response. “Love you too, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there, guys- hope y'all have prepared yourselves!


	8. until you're in my arms again (remember me)

_ (Bee has headed up upstairs.) _ Rey has hung up the phone.

Finn looks down at his hands, at the handfasting bracelet that he could never bring himself to remove. The  _ mizpah  _ pendant dangles, representing the promises that he and Poe have made each other over the years. All the way from coming out, with the promise that Poe would never ask for more than Finn was willing to give, to the giving of the pendant, cementing the bond between them, to the five years after Poe died, desperately clinging to hope.

( _ The five years where Finn tried to raise Bee, accepted his husband’s death- he remembered this promise.  _ Mizpah  _ extends even after death, over the longest of distances. The promise they made to each other meant far more than just the boundaries of this living world.) _

Poe does not remember those promises. From what he just said, Finn isn’t even sure Poe would be able to make those promises again. Poe is not the same man he was before.

(Finn can hold to his side of things, can continue the vows he took, but he can’t expect Poe to do the same.)

Finn swallows. This is not his happy ending. This isn’t Poe’s, either. Finn never should have expected it to be. He should have known better than to think of this as an ending- after all, no one’s dead. Until the final blow, life never really ends.

They have to keep struggling, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much they want to give up. They have to keep going. They have to try and fix themselves.

(And he kind of hates it. No matter how much he wants to help Poe, no matter how much he’s trying to be good, he  _ hates  _ it. It fucking hurts. It might be the worst agony that he’s ever felt, and that’s including his pixie-dust withdrawal, the times he’s gotten shot, and the times he’s been tortured by criminals.

The pain is emotional now, not physical, and that makes it almost clean, in a way. A sharp cut between the ribs, slicing into the sections of his heart that he thought he’d kept safe. No matter what he’d imagined happening to Poe- torture, kidnapping, death- he had never questioned Poe’s love for him.)

He reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, pushing back tiny curls in an attempt at gaining control over  _ something.  _ He has to remind himself that  _ this isn’t Poe’s fault.  _ Finn is not the victim- Poe is. He spent five years being tortured in every possible way by a woman who pumped potions into him, manipulated and drugged and made him slave. Finn can’t possibly imagine how terrible that could have been, can’t process how Poe  _ survived _ .

Finn realizes that there isn’t a thing he can do to change things. Both he and Poe are stuck in the places they are. They can only work from who they are now, not who they used to be.

(And if that ends up meaning that Poe won’t ever love him again, then that’s what will happen. Finn will accept it. Finn himself may never fall out of love with Poe, or maybe he will. Maybe one day this won’t hurt as much.)

Finn lets his eyes fall shut.

Maybe one day he’ll be able to look at Poe without seeing his own failures. Maybe he’ll be able to look at Poe as his friend, not his lover. Maybe he’ll be able to look at Poe and not feel like he’s still mourning.

( _ Maybe one day he’ll look at Poe and see him as just the father of his child, nothing more.) _

He’ll never forget that Poe is his husband, but maybe he’ll stop loving him so desperately. Maybe he’ll stop loving him until it feels like his very body will collapse if Poe leaves.

His heart squeezes.

_ Maybe _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to apologize to anyone who expected a happy ending. This story was never one that was going to be resolved easily. These characters have gone through far too much to have everything tied up in a pretty bow. I wanted to give them a perfectly happy ending (I love these characters so much), but it couldn't happen without time and work. I may write that story some day, but it won't be for awhile. I hope you guys enjoyed this emotional ride and this series, and I'd like to thank you for joining me here.  
> I hope you all have a wonderful day!


End file.
